Athletes compete to be top of the class at Sainsbury's School Games
Despite his recent heroics at the Youth Olympics in Nanjing where he claimed double triathlon gold, Ben Dijkstra still had enough in the tank to add the Sainsbury's School Games 3000m title to his list of accolades, reports Trevor Baxter.
The 15-year-old's 8:30.64 for victory was one of a number of top performances in Manchester as student athletes battled it out for School Games honours.
Dijkstra's South East rival, Alex Yee, was an equally comfortable runner up, but he was later disqualified for having stepped off the track during the race and the silver medal went to Emile Cairess and bronze to Stephen Ferroni.
"I guess I could have given this event a miss after the Youth Olympics, but it is one I wanted to do from a couple of years ago," said Dijkstra. "And I am looking forward to coming back next year as well."
Harriet Knowles-Jones won the girls' event from Niamh Brown, while Alicia Barrett continued her winning ways to take the 80m hurdles title in 11.04. North East's Reuben Cole won the boys' 400m hurdles from Joe Fuggle and Ciaran Barnes.
Oliver Bromby, the English Schools intermediate boys’ champion, won the 100m by 0.01 from Rechmial Miller, while Rory Dwyer took the high jump title with 2.09m.
» This is a brief report with much more in-depth coverage including pictures and results to be published in the September 11 edition of Athletics Weekly. Full results can be found here
